Killer draws 19 years to life

Tuesday

Jul 1, 2008 at 2:00 AM

GOSHEN — Jeffrey Beary grew up in the heart of Brooklyn, so he loved the change of pace that Newburgh offered: Grass, trees, the waterfront where he spent his final hours at a festival before he was murdered last year.

Oliver Mackson

GOSHEN — Jeffrey Beary grew up in the heart of Brooklyn, so he loved the change of pace that Newburgh offered: Grass, trees, the waterfront where he spent his final hours at a festival before he was murdered last year.

An Orange County Court judge on Monday sent one of Beary's three killers to state prison for 19 years to life. Beary's sister, stepbrother, godfather and grandmother filled a row in the courtroom on his behalf. His older sister, Lakisha Beary Sears, spoke for him, describing him as a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. "Jeffrey loved to have fun," she said.

She and her grandmother, Lucille Shaw, wore his picture, silk-screened across T-shirts. Her brother would've been 21 on June 14.

She told Michael Thomas, one of the three men who killed her brother, that no matter what he, Monroe B. Bussey and Earl Bell Jr. thought Beary did, there was no way he deserved to be kicked until his bones broke and his organs ruptured, then thrown into a car trunk so his torturers could get rid of him in Poughkeepsie. His body was found by a passer-by on the Fallkill Creek on Sept. 4, the morning after he was stomped to death at Bell's home on South Miller Street in Newburgh.

Prosecutors said Beary owed Bussey money for pot. Bussey denied that during his trial.

Regardless of the reasons, Beary's sister reminded Thomas that nothing could justify the murder.

"My brother was a person," said Sears, sobbing as she stood beside Senior Assistant District Maryellen Albanese, who obtained a guilty plea from Thomas and guilty verdicts after jury trials of Bussey and Bell. They'll be sentenced on July 28.

Addressing Judge Robert Freehill, Lakisha Beary Sears said of her brother, "He definitely did not deserve to be tortured, kidnapped and put into a creek, naked, Your Honor."

She talked about how her family never had a chance to say goodbye to her brother.